Quiz- Since the New Orleans Saints football team will be in the Super Bowl, what is that decorative symbol on their banners and helmets? It is a very old French emblem that also adorns the Provincial flag of Quebec, Canada. What is it called?


Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does it mean to be On the Road to Damascus? See below 36AD.
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History for 1/25/2010
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Birthdays: Temujin called The Genghis Khan, "Prince of Conquerors", Byzantine Emperor Leo IV the Khazar, Benedict Arnold, Carl Eller, Robert Burns, Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf, US Vice President Charles “Goodtime Charlie” Curtis, Edwin Newman, Jean Image, Dean Jones, Ava Gardner, Etta Jones, Corazon Aquino, Anita Pallenberg, Tobe Hooper

36 A.D. (-?) THE CONVERSION of ST.PAUL. There was a Jewish Pharasee named Saul who persecuted Christians, until on the road to Damascus he had a blinding vision. He changed his name to Paul and became the most zealous of Christians. Scholars speculate that Paul may had studied philosophical disciplines like Greek Stoicism and the Jewish Essene movement because elements of these faiths seem to influence Paul's structuring of his new religion. Paul is responsible for things like ladies keep their heads covered, men's heads bare in Church, etc. He made a point of going to Athens to preach the new religion in Plato's Philosophical Academy. He was also instrumental in bringing Gentiles into the religion, causing an early split in the faithful, when James the brother of Jesus felt that they should stay a reform movement within Judaism. Jame's group eventually died out.

Philosopher Frederick Nietzsche said he hated St. Paul for inflicting this heretical form of Judaism on millions of unsuspecting Pagans.

1077-HENRY AT CANOSSA- One of the hottest arguments of the Middle Ages was whether Kings could boss around Popes or visa-versa. Ever since Pope Leo had crowned Charlemagne in 800 Popes held that no man could rule without the Church’s official blessing.
In 1077 German Emperor Henry IV told Pope Gregory VII the Fiery Hildebrandt, that he could appoint or fire German bishops with or without Romes permission. The feud grew as Gregory excommunicated Henry and released all his subjects from allegiance to him; Henry declared Gregory “a licentious false monk” and elected another Pope.
But the superstitious fear of the common people and the ambition of rebellious German nobles brought Henry’s kingdom to a standstill. This day witnessed one of the most dramatic scenes in Medieval History: At the Italian town of Canossa Emperor Henry in hairshirt and barefoot stood in the snow waiting at the locked door of the Pope to beg forgiveness. Gregory forgave him but a year later they were at it again and Henry chased Gregory out of Rome with an army and Gregory excommunicated him again. Luigi Pirandello wrote a play about Henry IV in the 1920s.


1533- Henry VIII secretly married Lady Anne Boleyn already pregnant with the future Queen Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn was later called a sorceress because she had six fingers on one hand. Lusty King Henry has also had sex with her mother and her older sister Mary Boleyn. And Yer Little Dog, Too!

1669- THE SECRET TREATY OF DOVER- King Charles II had at last gotten the British throne back from Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans, but he ruled over a kingdom exhausted by war and bankrupt. So on this day Charles signed a secret treaty with the richest country in Europe- Louis XIV's France. In it King Charles pledged to work to return England to the Roman Catholic Faith and himself convert to Catholicism in return for heavy subsidies of French gold. Charles lived in a grand baroque style and may have converted in secret on his deathbed, but said nothing in public, so England stayed Anglican. His brother James II who was openly Catholic was later overthrown and a law passed that a Catholic can never again be King. Truth was Charles really couldn’t care less about religion. One time during a sermon the Dean of Saint Pauls was challenged by a Puritan protestor. The dean responded:” Hold your tongue Sir! You might wake up the king!”

1824- Artist Theodore Gericault was famous for his paintings of horses. This day he died, from a fall off a horse.

1858- Queen Victoria and Albert's eldest child, Victoria the Princess Royal (Vicky), marries Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia ( Fritzy ) in a lavish ceremony. They will sire the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, Victoria’s first grandchild and England’s great enemy. At this wedding for the first time the "Wedding March" of Felix Mendelsson from his "Midsummer's Night Dream" was used as the processional. Like everything Victoria and Albert did, it soon became a custom.

1863- Lincoln fired his army commander Ambrose Burnside and replaced him with General Fighting Joe Hooker. Burnside, whose mutton chop whiskers named the style "sideburns" was a military hard luck case. He lost the battle of Fredericksburg so badly that even the enemy was embarrassed. His replacement "Fighting Joe" Hooker was so fond of "ladies of the evening" that he brought them on campaign in their own tent and cavalry escort. They were called "Hooker's Girls" hence the term-"hookers".

1890- Newspaper reporter Nelly Bly ( Elizabeth Cochrane ) of the New York World is welcomed home after traveling around the World in 72 days. The stunt was inspired by the Jules Verne story Around the World in 80 days, which had became a hit stage play.

1924- The first Winter Olympics held in Charmonix France. Winter sports were celebrated as early as 1901 as the Nordic Games in Scandinavia. Trying to hedge their bets the International Olympic Committee originally styled the Charmonix games the Winter Sports Week. It was so successful that in 1928 the IOC designed the games at St. Moritz the Second Winter Olympiad. These games did a lot to raise the public interest in the sport of skiing.

1945- The Rock Creek Report recommends mass additives of fluoride into American drinking water supplies. Tooth decay drops by 50%, however many right wing fringe groups like the John Birch Society seeing it as a insidious Commie plot.

1947- Mobster Al Capone died in seclusion at his home in Biscayne Bay Florida at age 48. He was released from Alcatraz Prison early because of ill health, his mind was slowly destroyed by untreated syphilis. When another gangster was asked if Al would resume leadership of the Chicago rackets, he replied:” Big Al is nuttier than a fruitcake.”

1949- The first Emmy Awards ceremony was held at the LA Athletic Club. Five awards were given out. Mayor Fletcher Bowron declared the day “ TV Day” in LA.

1959- American Airlines sets up the first jetliner passenger service across the U.S.

1959- Disney's " SLEEPING BEAUTY " opened. Despite earning the fifth highest box office for that year, it finished $5 million behind what it cost to make. The animation staff had swollen to it's largest to finish the production. It’s disappointing box office soured Walt Disney on feature animation. His cheap life action movies like The Shaggy Dog and Son of Flubber were earning much more. After the Sleeping Beauty was finished the studio had a massive layoff, dropping from 551 to just 75. Staff level will not return to these same levels until 1990.

1959- VATICAN II- Pope John XXIII called for the creation of a Second Vatican Council to initiate reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. This was called Vatican II and it’s sweeping ideas changed the Church forever. Latin Masses replaced with native language, the priest does the Eucharist ceremony facing you instead of with his back to you, Folk Masses with guitars, etc.
Today many Catholic conservatives like Mel Gibson are mad at Vatican II for doing away with the Latin Mass. It was comforting to know that you could go into a church anywhere in the world and be just as confused as everyone else.

1960- Actress Diana Barrymore, the daughter of John Barrymore, overdosed on sleeping pills. The Barrymore family that had dominated the American theater since the 1850’s had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Ancestor after ancestor drank themselves to death. Current leader of the family Drew Barrymore recovered after seeking rehab at age 12. 1961- John F. Kennedy has the first televised Presidential press conference.

1970- Robert Altman’s groovy movie M*A*S*H premiered.

1971- Charles Manson and his followers convicted of 27 counts of murder. They were all sentenced to the Gas Chamber ,but the death penalty had been abolished in California for the moment.

1971-Dr Idi Amin Dada seized power in Uganda.

1984- The widow of Mao tse Tung, Chiang Ching, was sentenced to death for conspiring against the Chinese state. Madam Chiang was one of the leaders of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Her accomplices were called the Gang of Four.

1995- Moscow radar detected a nuclear missile launch from Norwegian waters headed right for them. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his cabinet had five minutes to decide if this was an accident or the dreaded First Strike, warranting a full retaliatory launching of all Russian missiles against the US.. They decided it was a mistake, and it turned out the missile was only a Norwegian weather satellite being fired into orbit. Similar nail biting incidents happened to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and off the US coast in 1986. So sleep well tonight, your safety is in the hands of President’s Obama and Medvedev!
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be On the Road to Damascus?

Answer: To have a life altering revelation from of a traumatic incident. See above- 36AD.

Question: What does it mean to be On the Road to Damascus?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: The opera The Marriage of Figaro is about Figaro the Barbera of Seville Spain. It is written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What language did he write it in?
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History for 1/24/2010
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Hadrian AD117, Farinelli the Castrato-1707, Pierre De Beaumarchais, Swedish King Gustavus III, Frederick the Great, Edith Wharton, German Field Marshal Model, Sharon Tate, Mary Lou Rhetton, John Belushi, Disney director Wilfred Jackson, Warren Zevon, Yakov Smirnoff, Daniel Auteuil, Orel Roberts, Natassia Kinski is 51

HAPPY ERNEST BORGNINE DAY! HE’S 92!

41 A.D.- CALIGULA ASSASSINATED- The psychotic Roman Emperor left a gladiator bout to have lunch when in an isolated hallway of the amphitheater his own bodyguards turned on him. His chief assailant was the captain of the watch Chaerea who Caligula liked to embarrass -he once gave Chaerea the watchword “Gimme a kiss”. After two sword thrusts the bleeding emperor shouted: " I still live ! Strike again !" Which they did until he was finally dead. They threw Caligulas’ corpse in a hole in the Lamian gardens. It was said his ghost continued to scare people there for years afterwards.

1848- James W. Marshall discovers Gold at Sutter's Mill, California. This event will spark the first big gold rush the following year, the '49 ers. John Sutter had bought the land from the last Russian settlers and set up his town while under Mexican rule. Ironically the gold rush ruined him. Thousands of prospectors ignored his jurisdiction claims, trampled his crops and slaughtered his herds for food. Within a year or two he was broke and spent the rest of his life trying to get the US Government to reimburse him.

1874- Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Gudunov premiered in Saint Petersburg.

1875- Camille Saint-Saens orchestral work Danse Macabre premiered in Paris.

1901- Activist Emily Hobhouse toured one of Lord Kitchener’s “concentration camps” that the British were using to corral in the Boer guerrillas in South Africa. This one was near Bloemfontain. Her reporting of the poor sanitation conditions and hardships of the Boer civilians there caused a scandal back home. Four out of five South Africans killed in the Boer War were civilians.

1902- Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the USA.

1927- The Pleasure Garden premiered, the first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

1942- Producer David O. Selznick signed young star Jennifer Jones. He became infatuated with her and left his wife Irene, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer to marry Jones.

1961- Warner Bros. cartoon voice actor Mel Blanc had a terrible auto crash at the Dead Man's Curve on Sunset Blvd near UCLA. He lingered in a coma for several weeks. The way the doctor brought him around was to say: “Hey Bugs Bunny! How are we today?” Blanc replied in character:” Ehhh…fine,doc!”

1965- Winston Churchill died at 90. His last words were "Oh, I'm so bored of it all..." At 75 Churchill said :"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter." David Lloyd George once quipped of how Churchill would behave in Heaven: "Winston would go up to his Creator and say he would very much like to meet His Son, about whom he has heard a great deal."

1972- Japanese soldier Soichi Yokoi was found in the jungles of Guam unaware that World War Two had ended 27 years earlier. He had stolen a radio and listened to the news. But he thought the stories of Americans in Korea and Vietnam were just propaganda. He was returned to Japan a healthy, if somewhat confused hero.

1983- Hulk Hogan pinned the Iron Sheik to win his first World Wrestling Federation title.

1984- Apple announced the first Macintosh Computer. It went for $2500.

1986 -Voyager 2 spacecraft flies by Uranus. A friend of mine was in the visitor's gallery at The Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the data began to roll in from the space probe. He saw one man break up the entire room of Nobel-prize winning professors into hysterical laughter with the childish pun :”Here is the latest data on Gas Emissions from Uranus..."

1989- Psycho serial killer Ted Bundy was electrocuted. He had conducted his own defense at his trial, which proves next time, get a lawyer.

2000- Your taxes at work. The entire computer system of the super-secret National Security Agency crashed and was down for several days. No explanation given.

2006- The Walt Disney Company acquired CG animation studio PIXAR. Apple and PIXAR head Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull get a seat on Disney Board and director John Lassiter becomes creative head.
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Yesterday’s Question: The opera The Marriage of Figaro is about Figaro the Barbera of Seville Spain. It is written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What language did he write it in?

ANSWER: Italian

Quiz: The opera The Marriage of Figaro is about Figaro the Barber of Seville Spain. It is written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What language did he write it in?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What does it mean to call someone quixotic?
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History for Jan 23, 2010
Birthdays: Musio Clementi, Edouard Manet, Sergei Eisenstein, Derek Walcott, Ernie
Kovacs, Stendahl, Jean Moreau, Randolph Scott, Dan Duryea, Rutger Hauer is 66, Warner Bros animator Manny Davis, Disney animation director Dave Hand, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Mariska Hargitay is 46, Sonny Chiba is 71.

1789- Georgetown University founded near what will be Washington D.C.

1795- A fleet of 14 Dutch warships got stuck in ice and was attacked overland by French cavalry.

1806-Prime Minister Pitt the Younger dies at 46. A heavy port drinker, he had a
stroke after getting the news of Napoleon's big victory at Austerlitz. As the
maps and dispatches dropped from his lap, his last words were:" Oh My Country
!" Another source said his dying words were "Oh I wish I had another one
of Mr. Bellamy's Meat Pies !". Suspiciously, the source of that anecdote was a spokesman for the Bellamy's Meat Pies Company.

1812- The largest earthquake in North America. It was not in California but in the
Mississippi Valley near New Madrid Missouri. The quake was felt as far south as
New Orleans where it moved the mouth of the Mississippi River, and it rattled store
windows in New York City. Legend has it Indian leader Tecumseh had predicted it.
He told Indians who had signed treaties with the whites:" I will stamp my foot,
then you will know the anger of the Great Spirit."

1862- Here’s a toast to that Great American- Count Agoston Haraszthy ! Who? Next
time you raise a glass of Napa Valley Pinot Noir think of him. This day the Hungarian
immigrant count bought land in the Sonoma Valley and imported cuttings from 1,000
varieties of European wine grapes. There may have been one or more earlier vineyards,
but He jumpstarted the California wine industry.

1867- New York City residents awoke this day to find the East River separating them
and the City of Brooklyn had frozen solid. It stayed that way for several weeks
wreaking havoc among the ship traffic and commerce. Everyone realized they needed
a bridge. Work on the Brooklyn Bridge was begun in 1869.

1879- The Defense of Rourkes Drift. After the British invasion force was annihilated
by the Zulus at the Battle of Ishandlwana the other day, a ragtag group of stragglers,
wounded and drivers behind an improvised wall of piled up oatmeal sacks hold off
the entire Zulu army. The first Victoria Crosses were given out over this engagement.
More were given here than at D-Day. One went to a sergeant who later had it stolen
off the wall of his pub. He petitioned the government and got another one....and
that too was stolen. When he died in 1911 he had the VC embellished on his tombstone....and,..you guessed it....it was stolen.

1913- A group of young Turkish army officers led by Enver Bey take over the government from the despotic rule of Sultan Abdhul Hamid IV, and try to modernize things, keeping the Sultan as a figurehead. Enver’s movement created the name The Young Turks.

1922- The first insulin injection given in Toronto by doctors Banting and Macleod
to diabetic patient Leonard Thompson.

1930- Ivory Snow soap invented 'pure as the driven snow'. In 1969 the model
on the Ivory Snow detergent box, Marilyn Chambers, became a notorious porno star. The baby she held in the photo was actress Brooke Shields.

1941- Aviator Charles Lindbergh testified before Congress to express his opposition
to lend lease aid to Britain and he urged America to negotiate a neutrality pact
with Hitler.

1942- Tupperware invented by Charles Tupper.

1943- A group of high German officials began secret meetings on how to kill Hitler and stop the war. Their conspiracy would culminate in the Operation Valhalla, the July 20th bomb plot.

1957- The Disneyland TV show premiered” Our Friend, the Atom.”

1968- THE PUEBLO INCIDENT- While America was watching the Battle of Que Sanh in Vietnam, a US Navy spy ship doing CIA intelligence work was captured in North Korean waters. The hostage ordeal mesmerizes the public for weeks and the sailors are finally released after a long captivity and humiliating show-trials. After his release,
the commander, Capt. Lloyd Bucher retired from the navy, went to Art Center in Pasadena and became an illustrator.

1974- The U.S. Congress authorized the building of the Alaska Oil pipeline.

1978- In Woodland Hills Terry Kath, the lead singer of the rockband Chicago, killed
himself when he playfully put a pistol to his head. His last words were: "Don't
worry. It's not loaded, see...?"

1989- Artist Salvador Dali’ died. Rushing to leave as much money as possible for
his family, his agents kept the ancient artist autographing reams of blank paper they intended to print Dali’ lithographs on later.

2004- Satellite TV dish installer Jay McNeil of Paduca Kentucky was trying out a
new telescope when he discovered a nebula in space. It’s now called McNeil’s Nebula.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean to call someone quixotic?

Answer: Idealistic and unrealistic: reaching for unattainable goals, like Don Quixote.

Quiz: What does it mean to call someone quixotic?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: When a pundit states the obvious by saying “ I’m Shocked. Shocked!” What movie is he/she referencing?
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History for 1/22/2010
St. Vincents Day- "If Vincents Day be Rainy Weather, shall rain then 30 days together.”

Birthdays: Sir Francis Bacon, D.W. Griffith, Charles Gordon Lord Byron, August Strindberg, Andre Marie Ampere (electric Amps), 1960’s UN Secretary General U- Thant, Ann Southern, Sam Cooke, John Hurt, George McManus, Joseph Waumbaugh, J.J. Johnson, Jim Jarmusch is 57, Linda Blair is 52, Piper Laurie, Diane Lane is 45

1506- THE SWISS GUARDS. Many European monarchs hired foreign mercenaries to be their personal bodyguards. They were often more reliable than their own subjects. The most famous were the Swiss. While the Swiss home cantons stayed at peace, her hardy men hired out as mercenary troops all over Europe. This day the warrior Pope Julius II hired a troop of Swiss and had Michelangelo design their uniforms. The Swiss Guards still guard the Vatican today, and are still recruited in Switzerland.

1555- THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD. When Mary the Catholic daughter of Henry VIII became queen she at first tried to be lenient towards her Protestant subjects. But continuous plots by Protestant nobility and her own desire to restore England to the old faith hardened her heart. This day began the mass trials and executions of those accused of Protestant heresy. Six clergymen including the Bishop of Gloucester were sentenced and burned at the stake. Hundreds more would follow. Even Spanish King Philip II urged Mary to calm down. Mary’s executioners added a new twist to an old system of Burning at the Stake. Before lighting the bonfire a bag of gunpowder was stuffed between your legs so you could go out with a bang. Bloody Mary and her cruelty in the name of Roman Catholicism all but convinced the English people to stay Anglican.

1787- 17 year old French cadet named Napoleon Bonaparte, on furlough in Paris, noted in his diary that after exhausting negotiations with a streetwalker he "…sampled the joys of Woman for the first time.."

1840- The first English colonists reach New Zealand.

1863- THE MUD MARCH- Union General Ambrose Burnside (who created the fashion for "side-burns") tried to avenge his humiliating defeat at Fredericksburg by a winter march up the Rappahannock River to maneuver around Robert E. Lee. In so doing he discovered why all pre-industrial age armies took the winter off.. Burnsides army was pelted by blinding sleet storms and bogged down in oceans of gooey mud. When Burnside finally called it quits he had as many casualties from sickness as had he fought a battle. A bitter army joke based on a children’s prayer went:
"Now I lay me down to Sleep, In mud that’s eighteen fathoms Deep."
"If you can’t see me when we Awake, please dig me up with an oyster Rake."

1879-Battle of ISHANDLWANA- The worst defeat ever inflicted by native peoples on a modern western army. The British thought they were brushing out of the way just another African spear throwing tribe when they attacked the Zulu Empire. They were unconcerned that the Zulu marched in regiments -impis, had generals -indunas and practiced strategy and tactics. A Zulu impi was trained to run in tight formation for 20 miles barefoot then fight a battle. Lord Chelmsford had invaded Zululand searching for the Zulu army when he was tricked by a simple diversion into dividing his forces. The Zulu then flanked Chelmsford’s force in a maneuver Napoleon would have admired, fell on his camp and wiped out two regiments of the 24th Welch Fusiliers.


It was a massacre similar to Custer at the Little Big Horn. Lord Chelmsford and his staff were eating lunch several miles away when an aide noticed in his telescope flashing and running around the base camp. Lord Chelmsford dismissed it as nothing but sent a courier to investigate. The courier at first saw men in red coats and white pith helmets walking amongst the tents. As he got closer he noticed that they all had black faces. They were Zulu warriors looting the camp.

1901- Queen Victoria died after a reign of 64 years, the longest ever for a British monarch. When she assumed the throne at 19 in 1837 there were still many alive who remembered the Battle of Waterloo and white periwigs, and she died in a world of electric lights, autos and motion pictures. The current Queen Elizabeth II has to reign twelve more years to catch her.

1918- A Manitoba judge tries to outlaw movie comedies, because they tend to make the public "too frivolous".

1930- Work began on the foundation of the Empire State Building in New York.

1938- On a bare stage, Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town premiered.

1939- At Columbia University for the first time scientists split a Uranium atom.

1944-Argentine Colonel Juan Peron first met radio actress Eva Duarte or Evita.

1944- ANZIO- The Allied armies advancing up the Italian boot had been fought to a standstill by fierce German resistance around Monte Cassino north of Naples -the Gustav Line. So the decision was made to amphibiously land a large invasion force in the rear of the German army with the intention of taking Rome. They completely surprised the enemy and their scouts reported the road into Rome was wide open. But the American commander General Lucas hesitated. In the meantime the Germans recovered and rushed up elite SS divisions that turned the battle into a bloody stalemate. Churchill said: "I thought we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a beached whale !" Instead of two days the allies didn’t take Rome until June 4th, five months later.

1947- Hollywood first commercial television station KTLA went on the air for regular broadcasting. At the time in all of LA there were only 350 TV sets.

1949- Mao Tse Tung (MaoZseDong) and the Communists capture Peking (Beijing).

1949-Tex Avery’s cartoon "Bad Luck Blackie".

1950- Preston Tucker tried to compete with the big auto giants like Ford and Chrysler with his revolutionary designed Tucker Automobile. But the giants bogged him down in court with charges of fraud. This day he was acquitted of all charges but the legal expenses ruined him. Only 40 Tuckers were ever made. Francis Ford Coppola made a movie about his life.

1951- During Winter baseball tryouts a promising young left-handed pitcher from Cuba was scouted by the New York Yankees. But after losing a game for the Washington Senators and getting dropped from their roster he gave up on pro-sports to pursue other careers- Fidel Castro.

1959- Former 'Our Gang' child star Charles 'Alfalfa" Switzer was killed in a bar in Studio City. He pulled a knife on a man over a $50 debt on a hunting dog. The man then shot him. He was 32. According to fellow Little Rascal Darla Hood, Switzer was a brute who bullied the other children, and bitter his adult career never blossomed.

1968-T.V. comedy review show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In premiered. It launched the careers of Lilly Tomlin, Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan. You bet your sweet Bippy!

1973- While President Richard Nixon celebrated his second inaugural with a concert, Leonard Bernstein conducted a Concert for Peace at the Washington Cathedral. While Nixon’s orchestra played his favorite classical piece Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812 with real cannons, Bernstein played Haydn’s Mass in a Time of War to 15,000 people against the War in Vietnam.

1973- The Roe Vs. Wade Supreme Court Decision 7-2 legalizing abortion. Before 1880 most abortion practices were legal, they were referred to as "quickening". The first prohibitions were more about banning dangerous quack drugs used in the process.

1975- Hollywood agents Ron Meyer and Michael Ovitz leave William Morris and form the Creative Artists Agency, or CAA.

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Yesterday’s Question: When a pundit states the obvious by saying “ I’m Shocked. Shocked!” What movie is he/she referencing?

Answer: Claude Rains as the corrupt French police chief Louis in the classic film Casablanca. He is asked by Bogart why his club is being raided, Louis replied “ I am shocked, shocked, to see there is gambling here. A beat later a croupier walks up to the policeman and says, Here are your winnings, inspector. And Louis thanks him.
So the phrase is used with delightful irony of the obvious.

Quiz: When a pundit states the obvious by saying “ I’m Shocked. Shocked!” What movie is he/she referencing?

Question: The George W. Bush Presidency broke the Curse of Tecumseh. What is that?
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History for 1/21/2010
Birthdays: Leadbelly (Harlan Ledbetter), Thomas J."Stonewall" Jackson, J.Carol Naish, Tele Savalas, Christian Dior, Placido Domingo is 69, Wolfman Jack, Akeem Olajuwon, Paul Scofield, Robby Benson, Jack Nicklaus, Benny Hill, Emma Bunton- Baby Spice of the Spice Girls, Gena Davis
Happy Tele Savalas Day!

1198- THE THIRD CRUSADE DECLARED- In reaction to the news of Salladin's capture of Jerusalem, King Henry II of England, Phillip Augustus of France and Conrad the Emperor of Germany "take the Cross", to invade the Holyland. Henry died before the army departed and was replaced by his son Richard the Lionhearted. Every morning before breakfast and every night before retiring, all the knights of the Crusade would raise one steel-clad fist towards the east, and to the sound of massed trumpets they would shout: " AEIDEUVA, AEIDEUVA, SANCTUS SEPULCHORUM!!" "Help, Help to the Holy Sepulchre!".

1793- KING LOUIS XVI GUILLOTINED- For three years since the Bastille fell the French King tried to play a constitutional monarch while conspiring with the other European monarchs to crush the French Revolution. It was a game that was too subtle for him. When foreign armies invaded France and declared their intention to remake Louis an absolute ruler, the revolutionary government condemned him to death. Citizen Capet, so named for an old family name of French kings, mounted the scaffold at Place de La Concorde currently where the U.S. Embassy is. He tried to speak to the people but the drummers were ordered to drown him out. As the blade fell his chaplain shouted: "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven!" The revolutionaries then stuck his head between his legs and threw him in a hole. Where the site of the Chapel Expiatore is today. The court executioner, Charles Henri Samson, wore pistols under his coat in case people tried to rush the guillotine. He usually never felt remorse for his victims ( "I am not killing them, the State is" ) but this one bothered him. He stayed away from home for two nights and would later hide escaped political prisoners in his cellar.

1861- SECESSION! COLLAPSE! President-elect Lincoln was still packing his bags in Springfield and writing out the luggage tags in his own hand "A.Lincoln, White House, Washington, D.C.", while state after state of the South voted to leave the Union and join the new Confederacy. On this date Mississippi senator and former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis resigned from the Congress. As he left the Senate Georgia senator Robert Toombs declared out loud to the Speakers chair:" The Union sir, is Dissolved !" Toombs had to hire a carriage to take him South because his personal servants had run off to be free. The Mormons of Utah were in an open state of rebellion, New Jersey and New York City talked of secession, California talked of pulling out of the union and joining Oregon to make a new country called TransPacifica. Mobs in Baltimore proclaimed Abe Lincoln would never get to Washington alive. Outgoing President James Buchanan said gravely: "I fear I may be the Last President of the United States.."

1899- The Opel motorcar company opened for business.

1916- The National Board of Review outlawed nudity in Hollywood movies.

1923- LENIN DIED. The Soviet dictator died of respiratory failure and cerebral hemorrhage at 54. The lack of a reliable system of succession plagued Communist states. As Lenin lay dying Leon Trotsky, Zioniev, Kamieniev, Krupskaya and a dozen others began a backroom scramble for power. Finally a minor bank robber and terrorist from Tblisi in Georgia who had risen rapidly in the last two years came out above them all- Comrade Kobal, also called Josef Stalin. Stalin even made sure Lenin's last will and testament was ignored and suppressed because it probably never mentioned him. One Soviet ministry removed Lenin's brain and kept it alongside Stalin, Gorky's and Sakharov's.

1935- the conservation group The Wilderness Society created.

1938 -Max Fleischer tells his New York cartoon studio they are relocating to Florida.

1938- George Melies, the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, died selling chocolates in a Paris train station -Gare du Norde to be exact.

1950-After a highly publicized trial top State Department official Alger Hiss was found guilty of perjury in a trial that accused him of covering up his connections to Communist agents in Washington. The trial made a national figure of a then little known congressman named Richard Nixon. Hiss served four years in prison, and lived the rest of his life maintaining his innocence.

1958- BADLANDS- Teenagers Charlie Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugate kill her family and go on a Bonnie & Clyde style crime spree throughout Nebraska, killing 11 people. When they were caught Starkweather pleaded self defense, even against the murder of Fugates infant baby brother. He went to the electric chair. Carol Ann Fugate did twenty years, yet always denied she was anything more than an unwilling accomplice. Starkweather had a 'James Dean-Marlon Brando' leatherjacket look and the two teen killers seemed to typify America's dread of juvenile delinquency and the 'degenerate Rock and Roll' culture of the 1950's. Their story inspired several films including 'Badlands" .

1977- President Jimmy Carter declared a pardon for most Vietnam War draft resistors.

1991- Disney's Beauty and the Beast becomes the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
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Yesterday’s answer: One achievement of the outgoing George W. Bush Presidency is that it forever broke the Curse of Tecumseh. What is that?

Answer: THE CURSE OF TECUMSEH-
The legend goes in 1828 when the great Seneca Indian leader Tecumseh was killed trying to stop white expansion, he supposedly put a curse on the entire white tribe in America. He declared every Great White Chief selected in a decade year would die.

Here is the record so far:
1840- President William Henry Harrison- died in office of pneumonia.
1860- Abraham Lincoln- assassinated.
1880- James Garfield- assassinated.
1900- William McKinley- assassinated in his second term.
1920- Warren Harding- died in office, possible poison.
1940- Franklin Roosevelt- a stretch- Roosevelt lived to win re-election in 1944, then died in office in 1945.
1960- John F. Kennedy- assassinated.
1980-Ronald Reagan- shot full of bullets and almost died.
2000-Bush- nothing happened!